Oprah Winfrey called into the Ed Lover show on New York’s Power 105.1 FM Tuesday morning, where she encouraged listeners to vote and shared her excitement about the election. She is so confident that her candidate, Barack Obama, will win the election that she’s already bought her gown for his inauguration!

“When Barack wins this evening, it’s a victory all of America – because black people and brown people and red people and yellow people all understand that he understands that all villages matter,” she said. “That’s what Colin Powell said when gave that beautiful endorsement of him. That is why I loved and supported him from the beginning.”
Winfrey – who said she already bought her dress for Obama’s inauguration — said today “is a dating of rejoicing for me. It’s a powerful thing we are going to do today, as a nation, with of our vote.”
She plans to celebrate at Chicago’s Grant Park tonight. Her pal Gayle King is even flying in.

Added Winfrey, “We want to be there that moment when Barack comes out … and he is the new president of the United States.”

The head to head exit polls just were sent to the Huffington Post by a Democratic source. These are traditionally unreliable and should be taken with a grain of salt (see: Kerry’s winning margins in 2004). For what it’s worth, they project a big night for Obama in several of the key swing states.

Again, as a point of caution, here is what Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg said about exit polls in an interview today with the Huffington Post: “The biggest problem with exit polls is… we do know that young voters are much more likely to do an exit survey and seniors are much less likely to do an exit poll,” he said. “So exit polls are heavily waited to young people, which normal bias favors Democrats especially this year.”

There are reports in Norfolk, VA where people have been in line for 5-6 hours! Please stay in line and be patient! CNN is taking 3,000 calls per hour on poll access problems. This is a record turnout, do what you have to do, but stay in line.

In the 2004 presidential, 10% of people who didn’t vote claim that they didn’t because they didn’t know where to go. To help alleviate that problem, The Google has created a tool that makes it easy to find out where exactly where you polling place is located.

If your vote is challenged!! In 2004 the Republicans challenged a ridiculous number of voters. The voters were then told by a sweet little lady at a table that their “provisional ballot” would be counted, BUT IT WON’T… DEMAND that poll judges make the judgment ON THE SPOT. Demand a call to the supervisor of elections. If you have to, go home and come back with a better form of ID. If you need help, call ELECTION PROTECTION at 1-866-OUR-VOTE. And help those around you when you’re at the polling place. Look for people having trouble. Call the number for them. Tell them not to fill out a provisional ballot!

In this clip from Uncounted, Ohio citizen Bobby Jackson, who was forced to vote provisionally in 2004, sends out a heartfelt plea for participatory democracy – despite his vote not counting. “I guess I’ll vote next time too,” he says, “’cause people fought and died for my right to vote…and I know that…”

Please help spread this clip and its message, along with with Mr. Kennedy’s and Mr. Palast’s timely and specific instructions, and help, in the words of Mr. Jackson, “make it right…”

Anecdotal evidence is coming in fast and furious of early-voting incidences including voting machine malfunctions in Ohio,Putnam, and Jackson Counties in West Virginia andDavidson and Decatur Counties in Tennessee, as well as hidden problems with “straight ticket” voting (confirmed bySnopes) in Texas and West Virginia. A more complete list of the problems so far can be found at VotersUnite.org.

It CAN happen to you. If it does, here are a few suggestions on what to do:

1) Video Your Vote
If possible, plan ahead for any problems by bringing a video camera with you to Video the Vote. Then, spread it around (send it to us and we’ll help). Remember, the focus should be on gathering evidence and not telling stories. So, use video, audio, photographs to document what happened. Also, get names and phone numbers of witnesses, voting machine serial numbers, names of poll workers, and document the time of day.

2) At the First Sign of a Problem, Stop*
At the first sign of a problem with your machine (or if you experience any of the other problems listed below), stop what you are doing and ask to speak to thesupervisor/officer of elections (skip the poll worker) at your polling location. Explain your problem. If they try and waive you off, call your main election commission number and ask to speak to the election commissioner who will satisfactorily address your problem. Keep in mind that many poll workers/supervisors will try and blame the voter aka “operator error.” Do not leave your polling place until your problem is well-documented and addressed to your complete satisfaction and, if the problem is with a machine, that machine is quarantined. Oh, and you get to vote. Never leave the polling place without voting.

3) File a Report. File Several Reports.
Your local polling place will have incident reports available to you. If they do not, call the main election commission for your county and ask for someone to bring one to you. Make sure that both you and the supervisor sign it. An example of a report is here (Hat tip:Wake Up and Save Your Country Voters Guide). The U.S. Election Assistance Commission also lists on their website where you can find out how to file a report in your state. Again, the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights Election Protection Hotline at 1-866-Our-Vote can also help with any questions in this area.

5) Pledge to Stand Up to Stolen Elections
Go to NoMoreStolenElections.org and pledge to not concede until every vote is counted – and counted as cast.
*Problems can include: machine problems, polling place problems (machines not set up on time), switching or closing of polling place, voters forced to vote on a provisional ballot, long lines/waits, intimidation, unusual ID demands, poll workers asking inappropriate questions, etc.

UPDATE: One of TrueVote.Us’s members has a great suggestion to add to this list: “Voters who see their vote being flipped by the machines on election day, if they can’t get the machine taken out of service, they should immediately begin telling all the voters still waiting in line exactly which machine flipped their votes. (Third machine from the left, or whatever.) Try to get people…to refuse that machine. This could cause trouble, backups, and increase the pressure on the local officials to mothball that machine. No doubt people are already complaining both to the officials and to election activists and lawyers waiting outside – but the other voters waiting in line also need to know. [I took out a bit of this that was very partisan because we believe that fair and honest elections are no-partisan and non-ideological. – Ed.]

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr and Greg Palast also add seven ways to steal back the election in another collaboration – a full color downloadable comic called, “Steal Back Your Vote.” This one’s a how-to guide:

STEP 1: DON’T DON’T DON’T mail in your ballot!! Absentee ballots are often not counted for the weakest of reasons. Furthermore, there are new rules in many states that you must photocopy your ID and send it with the ballot. However, they often don’t even tell you that. So hundreds of thousands of absentee votes will not be counted for this reason.

STEP 2: VOTE EARLY …VERY EARLY! Many states are already allowing you to vote. Do it NOW. That way if you’re not listed on the voter roles, you have plenty of time to get your complaint heard.

STEP 3: REGISTER AND THEN REGISTER AND THEN REGISTER! There is a TON of purging of voter rolls going on. It’s not enough to think you’re registered. Double check twelve times. You can check online at http://www.votersunite.org. Once you’re done with that, go register. …Then go register. [For most states. the registration deadlines have passed. So CHECK YOUR VOTER REGISTRATION! at VotersUnite.org. Some states have a way to check online, others you will have to call. If you find you are no long on the rolls, go down to your election commission and sort it out in person.]

STEP 4: DO NOT FILL OUT A PROVISIONAL BALLOT if your vote is challenged!! In 2004 the Republicans challenged a ridiculous number of voters. The voters were then told by a sweet little lady at a table that their “provisional ballot” would be counted, BUT IT WON’T. Don’t listen to the little old lady!! DEMAND that poll judges make the judgment ON THE SPOT. Demand a call to the supervisor of elections. If you have to, go home and come back with a better form of ID. If you need help, call ELECTION PROTECTION at 1-866-OUR-VOTE. And help those around you when you’re at the polling place. Look for people having trouble. Call the number for them. Tell them not to fill out a provisional ballot!

STEP 5: STEP AWAY FROM YOUR COMPUTER! Walk out your front door and get active!! Volunteer to help with the campaign. Or ignore the campaign and do something on your own. It’s as simple as printing out these ELECTION PROTECTION steps and leaving them at people’s doors. Hell, you could hand them out outside the polling places. Don’t sit still or this election will be stolen. And go to a swing state if at all possible.

STEP 6: FRIENDS DON’T LET FRIENDS VOTE WITHOUT FRIENDS! Don’t go to vote alone. Bring friends!! Lots of them or only one of them. Make it a date. Arrange to have lunch with everyone after you vote. Whatever it takes. And have your election protection phone number WITH YOU (1-866-OUR-VOTE).

STEP 7: IT AIN’T OVER ‘TILL IT’S OVER! If the election is indeed stolen, don’t throw in the towel! The day after is CRUCIAL! Three words need to be chanted over and over again: COUNT EVERY VOTE. For example, in 2000 Al Gore lost because of a Supreme Court decision that was 5-4 against him. Imagine if he had won that court decision. But if half of America had not chanted COUNT EVERY VOTE after election day, we would never have gotten to the Supreme Court. Half of America could’ve thrown in the towel on election night, but thanks to people in the streets, it was fought to the end.

In June 2006, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., wrote “Was the 2004 Election Stolen?” for Rolling Stone, and followed it up in September 2006 with, “Will The Next Election Be Hacked?.” He’s back, this time with investigative journalist Greg Palast (author of The Best Democracy Money Can Buy), with another chapter in his bid to save our democracy, “Block the Vote (Will the GOP’s campaign to deter new voters and discard Democratic ballots determine the next president?).Here are the highlights:

“On Super Tuesday [2008], one in nine Democrats who tried to cast ballots in New Mexico found their names missing from the registration lists…[In] Las Vegas…nearly 20 percent of the county’s voters were absent from the rolls…In state after state, Republican operatives…are wielding new federal legislation to systematically disenfranchise Democrats….”All these new rules and games are turning voting into an obstacle course that could flip the vote to the GOP in half a dozen states.”…Paul Weyrich: “I don’t want everybody to vote. . . . As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.”…Republican election officials at the local and state level have used the rules to give GOP candidates an edge on Election Day by creating new barriers to registration, purging legitimate names from voter rolls, challenging voters at the polls and discarding valid ballots….To justify this battery of new voting impediments, Republicans cite an alleged upsurge in voting fraud….federal courts found only 24 voters guilty of fraud from 2002 to 2005, out of hundreds of millions of votes cast…The recently enacted barriers thrown up to deter voters include: 1. Obstructing Voter-Registration Drives… 2. Demanding “Perfect Matches”…3. Purging Legitimate Voters From the Rolls…4. Requiring Unnecessary Voter ID’s…5. Rejecting “Spoiled” Ballots…6. Challenging “Provisional” Ballots…Add up all the modern-day barriers to voting erected since the 2004 election…and what you have is millions of voters, more than enough to swing the presidential election, quietly being detached from the electorate by subterfuge….If Democrats are to win the 2008 election, they must not simply beat John McCain at the polls — they must beat him by a margin that exceeds the level of GOP vote tampering.”

For those of you who think this an unfair attack on one political party, I ask you to read the article and think of the news you’ve been hearing the last couple of weeks. News aboutACORN (1. Obstructing Voter-Registration Drives?), the use of contested voter registration lists (2. Demanding “Perfect Matches), and voter roll purges (3. Purging Legitimate Voters From the Rolls). What makes you believe that stories about 4. Requiring Unnecessary Voter ID’s, 5. Rejecting “Spoiled” Ballots, and 6. Challenging “Provisional” Ballots aren’t just around the corner? As Kennedy and Palast remind us (and as you can see by watching Uncounted), we’ve already seen instances of these in 2004, 2006 and this year’s primaries.

It’s simple really – one of the few things that’s black and white in this very nuanced world. Voter registration and encouraging participation in the our country’s greatest tradition is good. Fighting hard to suppress this participation is very, very bad. If you’re still not buying it, then replace “Republican” with “Democrat” and vice versa, and reevaluate.

It’s for the good of the country and for those who’re bitter for a reason and armed because they’re scared.

Jonathan Valaniais editor in chief of the blog Phawker.com

As a lifelong Caucasian, I am beginning to think the time has finally come to take the right to vote away from white people, at least until we come to our senses. Seriously, I just don’t think we can be trusted to exercise it responsibly anymore.

I give you Exhibit A: The last eight years.

In 2000, Bush-Cheney stole the election, got us attacked, and then got us into two no-exit wars. Four years later, white people reelected them. Is not the repetition of the same behavior over and over again with the expectation of a different outcome the very definition of insanity? (It is, I looked it up.)

Exhibit B is any given Sarah Palin rally.

Exhibit C would be Ed Rendell and John Murtha, who in separate moments of on-the-record candor they would come to regret, pointing out that there are plenty of people in Pennsylvania who just cannot bring themselves to pull the lever for a black man – no matter what they tell pollsters.

These people are ruining things for the rest of us white people who are ready to move on. Sure, they have their reasons, chimerical though they may be: He’s a Muslim. He’s a terrorist. He’s a Muslim terrorist. He’s going to fire all the white people and give their jobs to blacks.

But those are just the little white lies these people allow themselves to be told, a self-induced cognitive dissonance that lets them avoid saying the unsayable: I cannot pull the lever for a black man.

Hey, some people just aren’t ready yet, even the governor said so. Just like some people aren’t ready yet for computers or setting the clock on the VCR.

Or, to hear Murtha tell it, some people – specifically some people in Western Pennsylvania – will never be ready. But the fact is, if you did a statewide head count of racists, you’d find just as many in eastern Pennsylvania as you would in the western part of the state.

That’s why this ban on white people voting I’m proposing has got to be statewide. And I’m sorry to say, it’s going to have to include all white people, even those who would vote for Obama, because you can’t just let some white people vote. That would be unfair.

By this point, you either think I am joking or are calling me an elitist. I assure you I am neither. OK, maybe a little of both. But it wasn’t always like this. I come from the Coal Belt, from that Alabamian hinterland between Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, as per James Carville’s famous formulation.

I am, in fact, just two generations out of the coal mines that blackened the lungs of my grandfather, leaving him disabled, despondent and, finally, dead at the ripe old age of 54.

So, understand that I am saying all this for the good of the country and, in fact, for the good of those hard-working white people that Hillary used to pander to.

I know those people, I come from them. They are not some shameful abstract demographic to be brushed under the rug of euphemism by Wolf Blitzer and his ilk.

I have broken kielbasa with those people. I went to school with their children. I have gone to Sunday Mass with a deer-hunter hangover with those people. They are bitter with good reason, and they are armed because they are scared. They mean well, but they are easily spooked.

I fear for what is to become of them after the campaigns leave town for the last time, and Scranton and Allentown and Carlisle go back to being the long dark chicken dance of the national soul they were before the media showed up.

Remember when your third grade teacher told you to “check your work?” Yeah, well, everything you need to know about verifying your vote you learned in 3rd grade.

In the following video, Jackson County, WV (where stories of voteflipping about this early voting season) County Clerk Jeff Waybright demonstrates that an uncalibrated – and supposedly calibrated – ES&S iVotronic voting machine will actually flip votes.

Votes flip so check your work and verify your vote. In the words of citizen Waybright, “You should never leave the voting booth without voting for who you wanted to vote for.

Tomorrow is Election Day: The campaign is over, and it is time to cast your ballot at last. What could possibly go wrong?

Plenty. A poll worker may say you aren’t registered. Your voting machine could malfunction. Your meddling neighbor could say you aren’t eligible to vote. Or maybe you are offered a provisional ballot — and what is the difference between regular ballots, provisional ballots and emergency ballots, anyway?

There is a remedy for most of these problems, and a bit of advance preparation should ensure that they never come up. Here is a voter’s guide on what could go wrong at the polls and what to do about it:

You aren’t on the voter rolls. This could happen for several reasons, and the remedies are different for each.

The huge number of new voters has caused registration backlogs in some states, and the voter rolls may not show your name if you registered just before the deadline. That “has the potential to be a significant problem,” says Jonah Goldman of the nonpartisan Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law.

If that happens, you may have to file a provisional ballot. Elections judges open provisional ballots after Election Day and, on a case-by-case basis, decide which should be counted. Your voter-registration form will have been dated and time-stamped and will provide proof that you are eligible to vote.

Be sure you are in the right precinct and polling place. State laws differ — in some states, a provisional ballot cast in the wrong precinct will be counted; in others, it won’t. The Web site www.maps.google.com/vote can tell you where your voting location is and how to get there.

You also might not be on the voter rolls if you haven’t voted in several elections and have been moved to the inactive list. Make sure poll workers have checked all of their voter lists for your name. Inactive voters are entitled to cast regular ballots, which are counted on the night of the election and aren’t subject to the additional scrutiny of provisional ballots.

Elections offices also regularly purge their rolls to remove voters who have died, moved or been convicted of felonies. Federal law outlines when and how they can do that, however, and Colorado and Michigan recently were ordered by federal judges to reinstate voters who were unlawfully purged. If your name was removed from the rolls, you might have to file a provisional ballot.

You don’t have an ID. Only Georgia and Indiana require an identification with a current photo. Other states require some form of identification. And still others require an ID only of first-time voters who registered by mail. A map at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice Web site (www.brennancenter.org/content/section/category/voter_id) shows the ID requirements for each state.

Some states allow voters who don’t have the required ID documents to file provisional ballots. Don’t take a provisional ballot if you don’t have to: State laws differ on how and when provisional ballots are counted, and there is a chance that yours will be excluded.

If poll workers ask for an ID even if one isn’t required, you can appeal to the chief judge at your polling place or call the nonpartisan watchdog group Election Protection for guidance. Their number is 1-866-OUR-VOTE. Election Protection will operate 25 call centers, staffed by some 10,000 lawyers and other volunteers, and is expecting 100,000 calls on Election Day.

Probably the best solution to an ID problem, though, is to show your driver’s license, whether it is legally required or not. “There’s not a lot of time on Election Day to stand on principle,” says Mr. Goldman.

There are voting-equipment problems. There are different remedies for different problems.

Touch-screen voting machines may lose power or otherwise stop working. In that case, polling places will have emergency paper ballots on hand. An emergency ballot, unlike a provisional ballot, is counted on the night of the election and doesn’t undergo a review by election judges. Make sure your emergency ballot isn’t mingled with provisional ballots, or it might not get a timely count.

Votes may “flip” on an electronic voting system, showing that you cast your vote for Barack Obama, for example, even though you are sure you voted for John McCain. Flipping usually is caused by a calibration problem, says the Brennan Center — that is, the voting machine isn’t matching up the candidate’s name on the screen with his name on an internal program.

Summon a poll worker to fix the error, make sure your vote is registered properly on the summary page of the electronic ballot and then call Election Protection, which is tracking machine problems.

Many states will keep their registration lists on electronic poll books this year. In some trial tests and primaries, those have crashed or been too slow to be of any use. If that happens, there is no way poll workers can verify your registration data, and you will have to file a provisional ballot.

Your eligibility is challenged. The Republican Party has said it might challenge voters registered by activist groups like Acorn, whose field workers it has accused of signing up fictitious people, felons and others ineligible to vote. State laws vary widely about who can make challenges and under what conditions. In Ohio, only poll workers can challenge a voter; in Florida, any voter can challenge any other.

Be prepared for a challenge by bringing along proof of your age, identity and address. If those are in order and you are in the correct precinct, you must be offered a regular ballot. If they aren’t, you may have to vote by provisional ballot.

The lines are long. Tough luck.

A few jurisdictions require election workers to offer emergency ballots if lines are more than 45 minutes long. Everyone else can probably expect a long wait.

Voting hours vary by state, so check the Web site of your local elections board. Everyone in line at closing time will be allowed to vote, no matter how late the polls must stay open.

Pennsylvania does not have early voting and the turnout is expected to be heavy, so this good news from the Centre Daily Times is very welcome:

Pennsylvania election officials will make paper ballots available to voters if half the machines at a polling place break down, they said, declining to appeal a federal judge’s emergency order on Wednesday.

The state has previously required that paper ballots only be offered if all the machines break down, but several voter groups filed a lawsuit last week in which they said long lines at the polls could disenfranchise voters.

Congrats to John Bonifaz, legal director of Voter Action, who helped push this one through (along with the NAACP and others).

And you have to love a Judge who opines:

The distribution of paper ballots to voters when 50 percent of the machines are inoperable at a polling place is compelling to protect their constitutional right to vote, and no state interest has been advanced to reject it. Indeed, plaintiffs’ request for relief is reasonable and even modest in light of the grave injury they seek to prevent.

In 2004 massive get-out-the-vote efforts created a huge turnout on Election Day, bringing more voters to the polls than ever before. But in key states (and The Keystone state), many voters showed up at the polls and waited in long lines for hours only to later discover the voting machines showed many of them had no vote recorded for any presidential candidate.

This particular scary canary in a coalmine is known as presidential “undervotes” – ballots cast without recording a choice for the highest office in the land.

In this clip, UNCOUNTED focuses on instances of undervoting in two battleground states in 2004 – New Mexico and Pennsylvania. New Mexico had a particularly large problem, where presidential undervote rates of 25% were reported in Democratic-leaning Hispanic and American Indian precincts. New Mexico had the nation’s highest presidential undervote rate – 21,084. (George W. Bush won that state by less than 6,000 votes.)

2008 might have a lot things in common with 2004. Now we’ll know what to look for if undervotes are one of them.

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